


Calls You Home

by Theyna_Shipper



Series: Star Wars One-Shots [23]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Ben Solo Needs A Hug, F/M, Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Funerals, Gen, I'm Bad At Summaries, Post TLJ, Rey Needs A Hug, Screw that it's very soft, They don't really get one but it's still kinda soft, soft, this is really sad y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:08:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25043665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theyna_Shipper/pseuds/Theyna_Shipper
Summary: Sometimes it doesn't take the force to bring together two people who need each other. Sometimes fate brings two grieving people where they most need to be.In the midst of a war, Rey and Ben connect at Leia's funeral.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Leia Organa & Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Star Wars One-Shots [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1637683
Comments: 3
Kudos: 42





	Calls You Home

**Author's Note:**

> After I saw TLJ, a friend and I agreed the next movie would probably begin with Leia's funeral. I still feel like that would have been better. So here's my interpretation of that. It's a lot of feels. Also I didn't like the Jedi prayers so I spliced and edited some Catholic prayers into something that I liked.

_If you're lost out where the lights are blinding, caught and all the stars are hiding, that's when something wild calls you home." ~Something Wild, Lindsey Sterling._

* * *

Rey’s hand rests gently over one carved in marble. The likeness of General Leia Organa rests in stone here on Naboo, in a tomb beside her mother. With burial on Alderaan impossible, those in charge of her funeral decided to reach all the way back to her roots. 

It’s beautiful. Painfully, achingly beautiful. The flowers, the city, the waterfall- Rey had never seen so much water before in her life. 

The ceremony itself was beautiful too. People Rey had never seen before telling beautiful stories of their time working with the General. Despite a war going on, so many had crossed the galaxy to pay respects to this magnificent woman. 

And now it is Rey’s turn. Long after every other guest has left, every flower fallen on the marble tomb, Rey says good-bye to the woman she admired yet barely knew, loved but did not understand. 

She is dead, was dead, has been dead. So why is it so hard to finally say good-bye?

Rey begins the prayer. “Force which surrounds-” She barely utters the first words before her throat closes up and prevents her from continuing

 _Please, let me do this in peace._ She takes a deep breath and tries again. “Force whi-” 

Tears flow freely down her cheeks. She thought she shed all of them during the funeral, yet here they are.

It is, however, another voice which leads the first line of the prayer. “Force which surrounds and binds us.”

Rey does not have to look up to know the voice. It is the voice that haunts her nightmares and blesses her dreams. She would think it came from her imagination were it not for the soft yet heavy footsteps behind her. 

The voice is not a dream. It is him. 

It is Ben. 

Rey joins him on the second line. “Blessed be thy name.” He walks towards the center of the dream. 

“Thy world to come, thy will be done.” His deep voice mingles poetically with her tight and teary one. 

“Through the galaxy as it is beyond.” Her breath comes more easily with the soothing rhythm of the prayer. 

“As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be.” They stand now on opposite sides of the coffin, each holding one of the marble hands, leaving theirs a centimeter apart. 

“Force without end. Amen,” they finish in unison. 

The formulaic prayer is complete; now Rey must add her own blessing. 

“Force, please bring peace to the soul of Leia Organa and solace to us who are mourning her. Her whole life, she never stopped fighting, and never gave up faith. She had enough hope for an entire army and then some. Please, lay her to rest, but let her hope live on. Give her the peace she always fought for and deserved. Let her lifelong journey end.”

Rey presses a kiss to her own fingers and then to the marble. Now she waits for Ben to say his blessing. Yet he remains silent, pensievely staring at the coffin. 

“Ben?” Rey whispers. “Would you like to- are you going to say something?”

His Adam’s apple bobs. “There is nothing left for me to say.”

“You’re her son.”

“Her son is dead,” Ben says hoarsely. 

“Her son is alive.” Rey reaches across the carved marble to grab his hand, sending him a wave of thoughts and feelings: the love his mother still felt for him, the faith she never gave up. Surely he can bring himself to return some of that. “And he came here for a reason.”

It is not until now that Rey sees the silent tears coursing down his cheek, tracing down the path of his scar. 

“Force,” he whispers. “I pray for the repose of the soul of my- my mother.” His breath is shallow. “My sins are not hers. It is time for her to rest. Let her soul finally sleep.”

“Amen,” Rey finishes. 

They rest a moment longer. The moment is fragile. Because as soon as they leave here, they have to accept that Leia is really dead and this is the last time they will ever feel her presence. 

“You’re here,” Rey says finally, confirming his actual, physical presence inside the mausoleum. “I wasn’t sure at first, but you’re- you really came here.”  
“I had to,” he says simply. “Pay my respects.” His voice is ragged and strained.

“She died peacefully, you know,” she tells him. “No pain. She got to say good-bye. And then she just- slipped away.” 

“I know,” he replies. “I felt it.”

She doesn’t mention her own pounding heart or uncontrollable breath or seemingly random torrents of tears, the three separate times she had to leave the room before finally gathering the strength to sit down and stay with Leia until the end. She doesn’t have to tell him.

Rey drops his hand and pulls back. "I need some air.”

“There’s a garden in the back of the building,” he suggests. 

Rey nods quickly. A moment later, he offers his arm, offers to come with her. 

Delicately, she slips her hand into the crook of his elbow. It is… oddly comforting, to have the warmth of another living body next to her. 

The air outside is crisp and cold, but far better than the stuffy scent of cloying greenhouse flowers. They settle onto a small wooden bench. 

The whole formal funeral has confused Rey. Usually, when someone died on Jakku, their body was left to the beasts. If they were lucky, they would get a shallow grave in the sand, although were usually still taken by beasts. If they had friends or family, they’d gather at a bar and tell stories, before deciding who got to scavenge the dead person’s stuff first. It wasn’t civilized. 

But there is a common element: stories. When everyone else was making their speeches, she could not find the strength to tell her stories. Now, though, they ache to be heard, by the air, the flowers, the sky, and most of all by Ben. 

“When I got back from Ach-To,” she begins, “Leia never really asked me about Luke, or the Force, or- any of that, really. She just made sure I could talk to her and kind of just let me- be. I didn’t have to be Rey the Jedi or Rey the Hero or anything. It was quiet, but in a good way.”

Ben’s face does not betray any emotion, but he begins to speak in a wavering voice. “When I was a little kid, and I would come to her crying, she never made me talk. Waited until I was ready. Held me. Just let me be.” 

Rey knows what a double-edged sword this was: that Ben stopped telling her things, that she stopped believing him. But they don’t remember that right now. All they need to remember are the happy stories. 

“One time I was sick,” Rey recalls. “I’d never been very sick before. Heatstroke and stuff, but not cold or flu. I didn’t even know I was sick. I kept trying to work until I practically passed out. She made me go to bed and rest and take care of myself. It was more than anyone had ever cared for me before.”

“When I was sick,” Ben replies, “Usually just a med-droid took care of me, since both my parents were away. But one time, when I was thirteen and at Luke’s academy, I had appendicitis. She left a huge vote to come see me and make sure I was going to be okay. She sat with me and held my hand until she knew I was better. I was barely even conscious. By the time I was, she was gone. But I remember just feeling… loved.”

A breeze through the garden makes Rey shiver. Wordlessly, Ben extends his cloak to cover both of them and lets her scoot close. She lets her tired head rest on his shoulder. 

“When I couldn’t convince you or Luke to come with me, join the Resistance, I was scared. I thought Leia would be so ashamed of me. I wanted so badly to make her proud. But she wasn’t ashamed at all. She knew I would keep trying.”

“The first two years after I joined Snoke, I thought of my mother every night. How disappointed she must be. All the things I wished I could say to her. Every day, Snoke could see. And he punished me for it.” He goes silent remembering the pain he once submitted himself to. “I never stopped thinking about her. I just got better at hiding it.”

Rey curls up into his side, not even caring anymore. He is here, no one else is; he is holding her, no one else is; he is talking to her, no one else is. “All she ever wanted was peace,” she whispers.

All his muscles tense underneath her hand. “Yes,” he realizes. “It’s not too late to give it to her.”

Rey stares up at him. “Do you mean…”

He nods, a muscle in his jaw twitching. Rey rests her head back on his shoulder, completely stunned. 

“Will you stay with me?” he whispers. “Tonight?”

“Of course.”

* * *

Rey wakes up the next morning curled up stiffly on the wooden bench, alone. Ben’s cloak is spread over her like blanket. She bears a vague memory of lips brushing against her forehead and hands tucking the cloak around her chin. 

Still weighed down with grief, but renewed within her faith, Rey drags herself back to the _Falcon_ to take her back to the Resistance base. 

A week later, a cease-fire is announced between the warring parties. No one can understand the First Order’s sudden desire for peace. 

But Rey knows. She is almost certain Leia knows, too.

**Author's Note:**

> Ben Solo died and then 2020 went to hell and I'm not saying they're connected but I'm not saying they're not connected.


End file.
